# Paola Ghirotti

Paola Ghirotti (born February 2, 1955) is an Italian photographer. For more than twenty years thoroughly investigates the environment of Japanese traditions: unGiappone® is the trademark, which maintains Paola Ghirotti's pictorial archive, her writings and, her ongoing photographic exploration of traditional cultures.
Her work had been published – in Italy and abroad – in books and magazines, some of them becoming images of reference.
From 1990 to the 1994 she has been credited for the Formula One motor race, his last grand prix has been in Japan on April 17, 1994 at the TI Circuit, Aida
She edited the special edition of Limes bimonthly Italian geopolitical magazine "Japan: This mystery", which was published, to universal acclaim, in 2007
She was given an unusual degree of access to the disaster area few weeks after the 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tōhoku (東北地方太平洋沖地震, Tōhoku-chihō Taiheiyō Oki Jishin). The ambassador of Japan in Italy had given her an official recognition for the expressions of solidarity and kindness towards the victims in Tohoku.
She is a member of AISTUGIA – Italian Association for Japanese Studies.

## Criticism

There are universes so remote from our daily life that, once seen, strike us so compellingly that we have no choice but to yield to their beauty, perfection, and purity. Paola's photographs, which I'm not ashamed to say I'm madly in love with, possess the discreet power of that which is inevitable as well as the quiet violence of subtlety. They say, "I am in the here and the now, in the purity of the moment." East, Japan of the mind

## Books

* il Giappone degli uomini mito, by Marco Panara, Giovanni Carrada, Paola Ghirotti, Armando Curcio, 1990
* Le cronache del Caffè greco, Fratelli Palombi Editori, 1987
* Il Vittoriano. Materiali per una storia, Fratelli Palombi, 1986–88
* Franco Zagari, Giardino Italiano a Osaka, Edizioni Over 1990
* un Giappone, Paola Ghirotti and Hori Yasue, Diego Mormorio, Marco Panara, Franco Zagari, Fratelli Palombi Editori, 1995
* La via Crucis di Francesco Messina a San Giovanni Rotondo, by Monsignore Crispino Valenziano
* Le Japon des Japonais, Éditions Liana Lévi
* le Maroc des Marocains, Éditions Liana Lévi
* La Chine des Chinois, by Hania Arentsen and Paola Ghirotti, Éditions Liana Lévi
* Japan: This mystery , the notebook Limes, The Gruppo Editoriale l'Espresso 2007.
* Jidai Matsuri 1990-2020 archive photos by Paola Ghirotti, Casadei Libri, 2020

## Exhibitions

* 1996 Roma – Una festa per gli occhi – La cultura del gusto, Akimoto Shigeru and Paola Ghirotti,
introduction of the exhibition by Fosco Maraini, Istituto Giapponese di Cultura Rome /The Japan Foundation
* 1996 Kyoto – Kyoto: details of spring and autumn, Goethe Institut Kansai
* 1999 Roma – L'acqua in architettura, American Academy in Rome
* 2001 Gifu – Italia no bi, Japan no bi, The beauty of Italian and Japanese beauty. Fine art Museum
* 2014 Roma – Ayrton Senna, at the speed of the heart
* 2014 Ischia – Ayrton Senna, at the speed of the heart
* 2016 Minamisōma – watashi wa wasurenai
* 2016 Urbino – 日本の美、ウルビーノの美 Appunti di bellezza: Japan no bi, Urbino no bi
* 2019 Gifu – Watashi wa wasurenai